Beefalo Wings
by Empyrisan
Summary: It's a hot day and business is low for the Mung Daal Catering Company. But when an unexpected customer visits and orders a difficult dish, Mung and Shnitzel hurry to finish it before nightfall as Chowder and the new customer cook a dish of their own...
1. A New Customer

A Chowder fanfic! Originally, this story was going to be one big document, but it was too tough to keep track of it so I divided it into chapters.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the canon characters, settings, ect. of Chowder!

Enjoy!

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**Chapter One**

A New Customer

It was another boring and harsh-weathered day in Marzipan City, for the citizens were too dead tired and hot to leave the protection of the shades the intricate buildings gave them against the shimmering rays of the sun. The King of the Sky was in a terrible mood lately and his fiery rage changed the usual weather of the city, making it almost too hot to venture out. The public pools of the area were all filled with swimmers, and even the beaches looked crowded. The thrice cream vendor was sold out of thrice cream, his cart was cleaned out of every drop of the cold dessert, much to the great disappointment of his most frequent customer, Chowder.

Things weren't too different for the Mung Daal Catering Company as well. Already it was afternoon, the time when the sun was completely above the city, and they haven't had one customer to take an order from. It became quite a big bummer that they soon lost interest in any cooking business today, leaving or giving no attention to their posts as they began to slack off or fool around the place. Truffles stayed in the front office, reading the daily newspaper that just came in while Mung and Shnitzel had occupied themselves by playing checkers against one another. The rock monster had defeated his boss fifteen times in a row already and smirked with each victory, making the head chef furious enough to strangle him for "cheating". Chowder, on the otherhand, was lying on his belly on the floor with papers, crayons and his pet stink cloud, Kimchi, floating beside him. Chowder was drawing pictures of his favorite food, weird creatures from his dreams, and even one of Shnitzel just recently being attacked by Mung. He hummed happily as he drew his next picture with a brownish-green crayon, trying his best to interpret the image of his best friend onto the sheet of paper. Though he was comfortable with what he was doing, he felt discourged about the fact that he and others won't be cooking today...

But from what seemed like out of nowhere, a bell jingled its cheerful sound from at the enterance of Mung Daal's Catering. Chowder looked up from his drawings, quickly getting to his feet as he rushed over to peek into the enterance room, followed by Kimchi. A shadow, casted from the light outside, walked in before its owner. The visitor appeared quite short in height, perhaps an inch shorter than Mung himself. A khaki broad-brimmed, high-crowned hat rested over the vistor's head with wavy, copperish and wild hair flowing underneath and tied into a long, braid that curved upward a bit at the end. The guest was wearing a dark cotton-made jacket, quite unusual to be wearing in hot weather, with a white, loose-fitting T-Shirt with a bright green palm tree on it. Following downward were simple, dark green cargo shorts that leveled a couple inches or more below the knees and a pair of worn-out, white sport shoes that have seen better days. Two small wings of copper-colored feathers rested behind the vistor's back, along with a lion-like tail that was held a few inches above the tiled floors with a curve. Also, a face with human/lion traits to it and two small, droppy ears were peeking from underneath the shade of the hat.

The visitor casually walked up to counter where Truffles was reading with the newspaper up to her face. "Excuse me," said the visitor, who's voice Chowder found to be...somewhat feminine than what he thought. And apparently, the vistor was, in fact, a female.

"What?" said Truffles as she put down the newspaper before looking at the new costumer, who's face was shrouded by the brim of the hat, "Ahh! Yes! Hello, dear, what do you need?"

"Here to commission a dish, please! I need a Ginormous Sizzle-Fried Elephant Fowl made by seven thirty p.m. tonight," the customer replied as she looked up, revealing a calm but cheery expression.

"Ah! Alright, dear. I'll call in my husband," Truffles said before calling out at the top of her lungs to Mung. "Honey!!! We have an order!" But Mung was still trying to strangle Shnitzel by his rocky neck with his hands when Truffles called out loud to him. She yelled out again, "HONEY!!! WE HAVE AN ORDER!!!"

Mung jolted, catching his wife's shrilly message in his ears and looked at his fellow chef. "Shnitzel, we finally have a costumer today!" he cheered as he jumped off the rock monster and dashed into the main room with Shnitzel close behind. He skidded to a stop next to the counter with the rock monster bumping into him a bit a second afterward. "Yes, honey?" the head chef said calmly, dusting his white shirt with his hands.

"This young lady has made an order: a Ginormous Sizzle-Fried Elephant Fowl," Truffles repeated the order.

"A Ginormous Sizzle-Fried Elephant Fowl?!" Mung exclaimed."My! I haven't made a dish that large since...well...forever! We better get started, Shnitzel!"

"Need it done by seven thirty p.m. tonight, sir...uh..." Shira mumbled a bit, unsure of the chef's name before her.

"Mung Daal to you, dear!" the head chef corrected her with pride, grabbing her right hand into his own to give her a vigorous handshake, "And nots to worry! Shnitzel and I will get to work on this dish right away!

Eager to meet the customer himself, Chowder walked up to the visitor, "Hi! My name is Chowder!" he greeted before turning to his stink cloud, "And this is Kimchi!" Kimchi blew a raspberry in a hello.

"Hello Chowder and Kimchi!" the visitor replied with a calm but cheery tone, "I'm Shira Pitaya! But call me Shira."

"You're not going to stare at me or kiss me or hold hands with like how other icky girls do, are you?" Chowder asked as he grimaced. He tried his best to stay from younger girls, like Panini.

"Why would I do that?" she replied with a smile and a confused look. Apparently, she was thinking that this Chowder was another of those little boys who believe in girl cooties or something. And it amused her as well.

"Chowder, why don't you keep our guest, Shira, occupied while Shnitzel and I make the dish?" Mung suggested, hoping Chowder wouldn't mind sitting out during this large of an order.

"Radda radda radda?" Shnitzel whispered Mung, wondering why he wouldn't want his apprentice helping out with their first order of the day. He could rely on the fact that Chowder would do anything to lend a helping hand around the kitchen, even if he would only play a very small role.

"With Chowder busy with our new customer, there will be no accidents while we, you and I, make this dish!" Mung explained optimistically to the rock monster. "I'm not trying to push Chowder out of the picture, but there is so little time to make such a big recipe to afford any mishaps! And you know how often accidents happen around the kitchen when Chowder tries to do the difficult steps by himself..."

"Ah, radda!" Shnitzel agreed. Without Chowder around, the dish would get done a good amount of time without the child's antics and bottomless pit of a mouth to eat their hard work.

"Okay!" Chowder agreed to his mentor's suggestion without question. "Come on in! Feel free to do some lookin'! Stay while 'cause something's always cookin'! Yeah!" he sang cheerily as he jumped into the air, grabbing his new friend by the hand and pulling her around to give her a tour around the building.


	2. The Flying Recipe

Second Chapter!

In case some of you were wondering, Shira's name is in fact a Indian sweet dish, also called halva. Sorry if didn't sound much of a food or something like, but it something I just came across while picking out a name for her.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the canon characters, settings, ect. of _Chowder_! I only own Shira and those other things not mentioned in the show!

Enjoy!

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**Chapter Two**

The Flying Recipe

"Whoa! This is one big kitchen!" Shira exclaimed, her lion-like tail swaying happily in the air as she looked all around the vast kitchen Chowder lead her into. Every unique detail of the room poured life like she had never seen before. Only in colorful, vibrant paintings found in children's book did such whimsical places existed. While all the other buildings outside had the same style of architecture as the Mung Daal Catering, this kitchen merely had something a little extra special. "You guys must've put your hearts into making such a wonderful kitchen! Far more humble than the last catering I visited not too long ago..."

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_"What do mean my food isn't tasteful?" Ms. Endive spatted as she scowled at Shira. _

_The lioness could have sworn that all the lights in the kitchen were blocked out by the vastness of this giant woman. "I'm not a food critic of any kind, really...but I just don't taste or even feel anything in this dishes..." Shira said honestly. The food that she had sampled were somewhat bland, lacking any taste whatsoever. She felt that food needed personality to help make them suitable for their consumers, and Ms.Endive's recipes just didn't meet her taste._

_Outraged, the room seemed to darken a bit as the large woman growled, "You are just like that renegade smurf chef from down the street! Get OUT!!!"_

_Shira dashed out of the castle as Ms.Endive chased her, throwing a pestle at the fleeing visitor before slamming the door shut. Shira just stood there for a moment, muttering before she walked away, "Well, aren't you a grouchy oompa-loompa..."_

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"Yes, and we're very, very proud of it! Thank you!" Mung replied gratefully before turning to his old friend, "C'mon, Shnitzel! The dish doesn't cook itself, you know? You go fetch the meat and I'll prepare the firing!" Mung Daal and Shnitzel quickly got to their stations to begin preparations of the Ginormous Sizzle-Fried Elephant Fowl.

"Being such skilled chefs, you guys won't have any difficulty preparing it, right?" Shira asked as she walked up to the counter on the opposite side from Mung, who was pulling out an assortment of cooking utensils.

"Dear, we are professionals!" Mung declared proudly. But a loud crash and a deep-voiced yell sounded off afterward. Shira and Chowder looked past Mung, wondering if the other chef was alright The master chef turned around to see Shnitzel lying on the floor, dazed. "Shnitzel, what are you doing? I'm paying you to work, not color pictures!"

Shnitzel scowled at him as he sat up. He had slipped on several crayons lying on the floor, some of which were now snapped in half or crushed into a pile of colorful dust. He had also dropped a pile of dishes that were now shattered. "Radda radda radda radda!" the rock monster yelled as he pointed at the the crayons.

"Whoops! Sorry, Shnitzel," Chowder apologized as he pick up of what's left of his crayons and gathered his now wrinkled drawings. The child looked through the papers, picking one out from the pile and tugged on Shnitzel's apron three times before he walked away to get the broom. "Shnitzel, I made this for you!" Chowder beamed as he gave the rock monster his picture.

Shnitzel took the picture and look at it. A slightly angry look grew on the rock monster's face when Mung and Shira walked up beside him to look at Chowder's picture. It was a crayon drawing of Shnitzel being strangled by Mung with the checkerboard and several game pieces flying overhead. Shira thought it was adorable while Mung thought it was one of the greatest works of art he had ever seen.

"I like it!" Mung said happily as Shnitzel casted him a deathly glance.

Once Chowder and Shnitzel had finished cleaning the mess they had made, Chowder watched his older fellow chefs get to work on the dish before any accidents would occur. His eyes then coming across the two vestigial, copper-feathered limbs that rested on Shira's back from two holes on her black, cotton jacket. "Hey, Shira? Are those wings on your back?" he asked her, pointing at the things he was talking about.

"These things?" Shira asked as she turned her head to look at the wings on her back. She flapped them twice. "Of course they are!"

"Can you fly with them?" Chowder wondered. Small wings like those couldn't possibly pick Shira off the ground, but since Truffles had even tinier, fairy wings, who was he to say that the young lioness couldn't fly.

"Sometimes. I only fly around the city on them when I want to clear my mind, cross great distances for a short time or something. Helps a lot, too!" she replied with a smile. "Why do ya want to know?"

"Could I fly?" Chowder asked, flapping his arms while he pretended them to be wings instead. He could somehow levitate a few inches off the ground; Shnitzel had seen him done it before at the Marzipan Bank. But the child wondered what it would be like just to go beyond that.

"Do you have wings?" Shira asked him, circling Chowder to see if he had any wings. She, of course, didn't find any on his person.

"No..." he frowned, remembering the ways how he tried to gain a pair for himself. He tried chewing on Truffles's pixie wings to see if he could grow some wings of his own, but, of course, it didn't work and Truffles smacked him upside on the head for such an act. Mung wouldn't stop laughing for days since he had found that out.

Shira stood quiet for moment, using this time to think up of something that could make the bear-cat-rabbit child happy. "Well, I do know this one option that can give you a ride in the sky...a nice, flight around town on tasty wings sounds good?" Shira offered him with a grin upon her face, tail swaying casually. Though she only knew him for several minutes, she knew from the facts she had just gathered that Chowder would think that this opportunity was too good to pass.

"Really?!" Chowder asked excitedly as he wagged his tail and his eyes turning bigger and shinnier. He ran up to Shira and tugged on her jacket excitedly, "How?! How do I fly?! How do I fly?!"

"It's a recipe called...Beefalo Wings!" Shira cheered proudly, standing on a wooden stool with arms spreading out while a single ray of light beamed down upon her from an opened widow.

Chowder had a confused look about having to be introduced to an unknown dish Mung never mentioned to him. "Beefalo Wings? How will that help?" he asked as he looked up at her.

"In many ways unimaginable! This food recipe can take you on a fantastic ride around Marzipan City on great, spicy wings! But...only for a limited time...and then you can eat them!" she explained to him.

"I wanna make Beefalo Wings!" Chowder cheered brightly, jumping in the air and tapping the heels of his feet together as he did so. "Beefalo Wings! Beefalo Wings!" he repeated as he ran several times around the stool Shira was standing on while the guest watched him. "Beefalo Wings! Beefalo Wings!" he repeated again, this time, he jumped over the counter about four times where Mung was preparing the sauce for Shira's order. "Beefalo Wings! Beefalo Wings!" he repeated the phase once more, running in endless circles around Shnitzel, who was busy frying the giant meat of an elephant fowl.

Shnitzel growled and snatched the child by his hat and stubby ears underneath, lifting from the tiled floor and coming face-to-face with Chowder. "Radda radda!!!" the rock monster yelled before letting go of Chowder, who quickly dashed back to Shira.

"I wanna make Beefalo Wings!" he said cheerily, shaking his tiny, clenched fists and wagging his tail excitedly.

"And like how my order is being prepared, the Beefalo Wings will require some good cooking! Does Chef Mung have a decent number of recipe books so I can look it up and make sure we do it right?"

"Yeah! Mung has tons of books! C'mon!" Chowder lead Shira into a library just stairsteps away upward, built in the wall of the kitchen. Tons of cookbooks were stuffed into shelves, and many more were piled into tall stacks that could even tower over Shnitzel. Together, they flipped through the ocean of written pages that told of wonderous recipes and dishes, many to be found only beyond Marzipan City. Page after page, they continued their search for several minutes. While Shira carefully looked at the titles of each book and page for the Beefalo Wings, Chowder merely took time to look at the interesting, colorful pictures he found in the books.

"Do you know how to cook, Shira?" Chowder asked her, unsure if it was safe to let a new stranger do a "little" cooking around Mung's kitchen. The master chef would freak out if he ever saw his beloved kitchen destroyed.

"I know a little bit about cooking but I sometimes try to stay away from it...only because I'm afraid I might burn the poor food too much," Shira admitted as she flipped the pages, "My mom used to do most of the cooking in the household, and I just help out sometimes. But I have a different occupation of the culinary arts..."

"What is it?" Chowder asked, "Do you sell food at the market? Do you grow food? Do you hunt for food?"

"I raise animal foods, actually," she replied simply, "You know, like blutter fish, calamari, collieflowers, okrapis, bearberries, kiwifrut, and tigerines? Those creatures. Kinda like a farmer/zookeeper kind of job."

"Then how do you know how to make Beefalo Wings if you're not really a chef?"

"It was a recipe I came across while reading one of my mom's cookbooks. It looked like an interesting work of art so I tried my hand at cooking the dish...and boy, was it amazing! Took quite a while to make, but it was worth it! Of course...I had to clean up the mess it made around the kitchen. So yeah, take it outside for a while to save your loves from a heart attack." Shira flipped through a few more pages until she came across the desired recipe. "Here it is! Beefalo Wings! Ready to start on it?"

"Okay!" Chowder beamed, "So what's the first step?"

"What's not the first step?" Shira laughed as she showed him the page of step one of the dish, "We gotta round up ourselves a beefalo!"

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A/N: In case if some of have guessed it or not, that part with Chowder repeating "Beefalo Wings" over and over was a reference to the episode _Burple Nurples_, where Chowder did pretty much the same thing. 


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